Johnny Ludlow Second Series Part 57

"It is our turn to part now, Mary. I must be gone."

Her sweet face was almost distorted with the efforts she had been making to keep down emotion before the child. She burst into tears, as her hand met Sir Geoffry's.

"G.o.d bless you! G.o.d bless you always, my darling!" he murmured. "Take my thanks, once for all, for the manner in which you have met the past; there is not another woman living who would have done and borne as you have. This is no doubt our last meeting on earth, Mary; but in eternity we shall be together for ever. G.o.d bless you, and love you, and keep you always!"

A lingering hand-pressure, a steady look into each other's eyes, reading the present anguish there, reading also the future trust, and then their lips met--surely there was no wrong in it!--and a farewell kiss of pain was taken. Sir Geoffry went out, b.u.t.toning his overcoat across his chest.

A fly was waiting before Mr. Duffham's house; the surgeon and Arthur were standing by it on the pavement. Sir Geoffry got inside.

"Good-bye, Sir Geoffry!" cried the little lad, as Mr. Duffham, saying he should be at the Grange in the morning, was about to close the door. "I shall write and tell papa how good you've been, to give me your own Bible. I can write small-hand now."

"And fine small-hand it is!" put in old Duffham in disparagement.

Sir Geoffry laid his hand gently on Arthur's head, and kept it there for a minute. His lips were moving, but he said nothing aloud. Arthur thought he had not been heard.

"Good-bye, Sir Geoffry," he repeated.

"Good-bye, my child."

Sir Geoffry lay back in an easy-chair in front of the fire in his library. The end was near at hand now, but he was bearing up quite well to the last. Lady Chava.s.se, worn almost to a shadow with grief and uncertainty--for there were times yet when she actually entertained a sort of hope--sat away in the shade; her eyes watching every change in his countenance, her heart feeling ever its bitter repentance and despair.

Repentance? Yes, and plenty of it. For she saw too surely what might have been and what was--and knew that it was herself, herself only, who had worked out this state of things. Her self-reproach was terrible; her days and nights were one long dream of agony. Lady Rachel was not with them very much. She lay down more than ever in her own room; and Lady Chava.s.se had begun to learn that this almost continuous lying was not caused by inert idleness, but of necessity. The Grange was a sad homestead now.

The blaze from the fire flickered on Sir Geoffry's wasted face. _Hers_ was kept in the shadow, or it might have betrayed the bitterness of her aching heart. He had been speaking of things that touched her conscience.

"Yes, it was a sin, mother. But it might have been repaired; and, if it had been, I believe G.o.d would have blessed us all. As it is--well, we did not repair it, you and I; and so--and so, as I take it, there has not been much of real blessing given to us here; certainly not of heartfelt comfort. I seem to see all things clearly now--if it be not wrong to say it."

Lady Chava.s.se saw them too--though perhaps not exactly in the way he meant. Never was the vision, of what might have been, more vividly before her than now as he spoke. She saw him, a hale happy man; his wife Mary, their children, a goodly flock, all at the Grange, and herself first amongst them, reigning paramount, _rejoicing_ in her good and dutiful daughter-in-law. Oh, what a contrast between that vision and reality! A repressed groan escaped her lips; she coughed to smother it.

"Mother!"

"Well, Geoffry?"

"You need not have suppressed my last letter to Mary--the letter of explanation I wrote when I quitted her and the Grange. You might have been sure of me--that I would be true to my word to you."

No answer. There was a great deal that she would not suppress, besides the letter, if the time had to come over again. The log sparkled and crackled and threw its jets of flame upwards; but no other noise disturbed the room's stillness.

"Mother!"

"Well, Geoffry?"

"I should like the child, little Arthur, to have my watch and its appendages. Have you any objection?"

"None."

"It will be looked upon, you know, as a token of remembrance to the little fellow who had so sharp an illness through my horse."

"Yes."

"And--I have two desks, you know. The old one of common stained wood I wish sent to Miss Layne, locked as it is. The key I will enclose in a note. Let them be sent to her when I am dead."

"It shall be done, Geoffry."

"There's not much in the desk. Just a few odds and ends of papers; mementoes of the short period when I was happy--though I ought not to have been. Nothing of value; except a ring that I bought for her at Worcester at the time, and which she would not take."

"I promise it, Geoffry. I will do all you wish."

"Thank you. You have ever been my loving friend, mother."

"_Ever_, Geoffry?"

"Well--you did for the best there, mother; though it was a mistake. You acted for what you thought my welfare."

"Would you not like to see her, Geoffry?"

"I have seen her and bidden her farewell. It was the afternoon I went to Duffham's and you said that I stayed out too late. And now I think I'll lie down on the sofa, and get, if I can, a bit of sleep; I feel tired.

To-morrow I will talk about you and Rachel--and what will be best for you both. I wish to my heart, for your sake and hers, that Rachel had borne a son; I am thinking of you both daily, and of what you will do when I am gone."

"I shall never know pleasure in life again, Geoffry," she cried, with a heartbroken sob. "Life for me will be, henceforth, one of mortification and misery."

"But it will not last for ever. Oh, mother! how merciful G.o.d is!--to give us the blessed hope of an eternal life of perfect happiness, after all the mistakes and tribulations and disappointments of this! My darling mother! we shall all be there in sweet companionship for ever."

They buried Sir Geoffry Chava.s.se by the side of his father--and any one who likes to go there may see his tomb against the graveyard wall of Church d.y.k.ely. My Lady Chava.s.se arranged the funeral. The Earl of Derreston and a Major Chava.s.se were chief mourners, with other grand people. Duffham's diary gives the particulars, but there is no s.p.a.ce here to record them. Duffham was bidden to it; and brought Arthur Layne in his hand to the Grange, in obedience to a private word of my lady's--for she knew the dead, if he could look out of his coffin, would like to see Arthur following. So the procession started, a long line; the village gazing in admiration as it pa.s.sed; and Dobbs the blacksmith felt as proud as ever was the Grange peac.o.c.k, when he saw Colonel Layne's little son in a coach, amidst the gentlefolks. 'Twere out of respect to the colonel's bravery, you might be sure, he told a select audience: and p'r'aps a bit because o' that back accident to the child hisself. And so, amidst pomps, and coaches, and comments, Geoffry Chava.s.se was left in his last home.

[_Final matters extracted from Duffham's Diary._]

It is eighteen months now since Sir Geoffry died; and strange changes have taken place. The world is always witnessing such: you go up, and I go down.

Admiral Chava.s.se came home and took possession of the Grange. My lady had previously quitted it. She did not quit Church d.y.k.ely. It seemed indifferent to her where she settled down; and Lady Rachel Chava.s.se had become used to my attendance, and wished to stay. There was a small white villa to let on this side of the Grange, and they took it. Lady Rachel lies down more than ever; when she goes out it is in a Bath-chair. Old John Noah draws it. The spinal complaint is confirmed. I can do her no good; but I go in once or twice a week, and have a gossip.

She is very fractious: and what with one thing and another, my Lady Chava.s.se has a trying life of it. They keep three servants only; no carriage--except the Bath-chair. What a change! what a change!

If ever there was a disappointed woman in this world, one who feels the humiliation of her changed position keenly, whose whole life is a long living repentance, it is Lady Chava.s.se. The picture of what might have been is ever in her mind; the reality of what is, lies around her. To judge by human fallibility, she has a long existence before her: not quite fifty yet, and her health rude: but in spirit she is a bowed, broken-down woman.

The Grange is let. Sir Parker Chava.s.se could not reconcile himself to living in a rural district, and went back to his ship. At first he shut the Grange up; now he has let it for a term to Mr. and Mrs. McAlpin, formerly of Calcutta. They live there with their children; in as good a style as ever the Chava.s.ses did. Allan McAlpin has given up business, and spends his large fortune like the gentleman he is. She is Mary Layne's sister: a dainty and rather haughty woman. My lady looks out surrept.i.tiously from the corner of her window as Mrs. McAlpin's carriage bowls along the road beyond the field. Colonel Layne's wife is also here just now, on a visit at the Grange; her husband, Sir Richard Layne, K.C.B., has returned to his duties in India. The whole county calls upon them and seems proud to do it, forgetting perhaps that they were only the daughters of my predecessor, Layne the apothecary. Yes! there are strange ups and downs in this world: and Mary Layne, so despised once, might not now be thought, even by my lady, so very unequal to Sir Geoffry Chava.s.se.

_She_ does not go in for grandeur. But the village would like to lay its hands under her feet. Never was there so good, so unselfish, so sweet and humble-minded a woman as Mary. In a temporary indisposition that attacked her a few weeks ago, Mr. Dobbs, struck with consternation, gave, it as his opinion that Church d.y.k.ely "could afford to lose the whole biling of 'em, better than her." Lady Chava.s.se has seen her merit at last; and Mary's frequent presence in their house seems to bring light to the two lonely women. Arthur goes there too; my lady loves him, curious though the fact may sound. An incident occurred the other evening.

Miss Layne and Arthur were at tea there, when I happened to go in with some medicine. Mary had her work out, and sat talking in a low voice to Lady Rachel on her sofa; Lady Chava.s.se was watching Arthur, playing on the gra.s.s-plat. My lady rose up with a sudden cry:

"Take care of the wasp, Sir Arthur! Sir Arthur!"

I saw what painful reverie she had been lost in--the vision of that which might have been. It is apt to steal on her at sunset. Becoming conscious of the slip, she flushed slightly, and turned it off. Lady Rachel laughed; she thought it a good joke. Mary was more silent than usual that night, as I walked home by her and Arthur's side.

Here ends the history. Mary Layne lives on in her home, training Arthur, helping the sick and suffering, keeping her face steadily turned to another world. Never a one is there amidst us so respected as that good, grave lady, who blighted her life in early womanhood, and who carries its trace on her sad, sweet countenance, and its never-ceasing shame on her sorrowing heart.